Language Log

ICYMI: I woke up in a cold sweat last night to create this content. I present: the Email Sign-off Alignment pic.twitter.com/SkNpXxrj5V — Julia Burnham (@juliarburnham) August 9, 2019

Neil Kubler spotted this restaurant sign last week in Xi'an in northwest China:

Two delightful Chinglish specimens submitted by Karen Yang:

It's strange that there are some simplified characters in the Hong Kong police newsletter, but stranger still that they are only sporadic: Simplified Chinese characters (in red circles) are found in the online edition of OffBeat. Police Commissioner Andy Tsang (inset) holds a copy of the newsletter at a press conference last month. Photos: Stand […]

The "Federal Demonstration Partnership" is "is association of federal agencies, academic research institutions with administrative, faculty and technical representation, and research policy organizations that work to streamline the administration of federally sponsored research." There are 155 participating universities, and a larger number of "participating organizations" since e.g. the University of California is counted as one […]

From Steven Bird: Interested in a PhD combining language, computation, and design, supporting language revitalisation? Join us in Australia's far north – beautiful country and a global hot-spot for linguistic diversity. Many projects are in partnership with language centres in remote communities. Applications due 31 October. Please contact me for details. steven.bird@cdu.edu.au.

From the moment I began learning Mandarin more than half a century ago, I had a strong, visceral opposition to learning the characters.  I wanted to learn the language — its phonology, grammar, lexicon, morphology, syntax, idioms.  My teachers forced me to learn some characters, but I figured out various ways to devote much more […]

[This is a guest post by Tsu-Lin Mei] In 1976 I was in Kyoto for my sabbatical leave and I attended Yoshikawa Kojiro’s (Yoshikawa Kōjirō 吉川幸次郎; 18 March 1904 – 8 April 1980) private seminar on Tu Fu (712-770).  The seminar was held in a room in the Kyoto University Faculty Club and we were […]

From June Teufel Dreyer: When I went to the supermarket yesterday for my weekly sashimi fix, I noticed that the preparer seemed to have cloned herself.  It was her brother (the preparers wear caps concealing their hair and the two looked virtually identical). Sister was instructing brother on exactly how I like the sashimi in […]

There's a huge controversy over whether the police commander uses the Mandarin word "tóngzhìmen 同志们" ("comrades") at around 2:15 in this video:

Twitter is a good medium for this: Here is the methodology: Quantum Bullshit Detector reads paper or article. If it is bullshit, Quantum Bullshit Detector labels it bullshit. If it is Not Bullshit, Quantum Bullshit Detector labels it Not Bullshit. — Quantum Bullshit Detector (@BullshitQuantum) April 1, 2019  

By Dianne Gallagher, Catherine Shoichet and Madeline Holcombe, "680 undocumented workers arrested in record-setting immigration sweep on the first day of school", CNN 8/8/2019 [emphasis added]: After immigration authorities rounded up hundreds of workers in a massive sweep at seven Mississippi food processing plants, friends and family members are desperately searching for answers. A crowd […]

Representative Devin Nunes (R-Calif) is described as a "farmer" on the ballots that voters in his district use. Back before the 2018 election, a group of his constituents petitioned to get this label changed, on the grounds that his family farm is a dairy they own in Iowa, in which he plays no operational role. […]